My new pc has windows XP and Word 2002.Text documents look ok in print layout
view, so presumably they'd print out ok, but in normal view, which I use for
working on the documents, the text starts on the left of the screen and goes
about halfway across. I would prefer to have the text about in the middle of
the screen when I'm working on it, but I don't know how to do it.
I'd appreciate some help.

That is normal for Normal view (partly to accommodate the task pane). You
can move the text to the right by Shift+clicking the left arrow on the
horizontal scroll bar or by displaying the Document Map or Thumbnails (in
Word 2003). Or you could switch to Print Layout view and hide the white
space between pages.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

"laurence peddle" wrote in
message ...
My new pc has windows XP and Word 2002.Text documents look ok in print
layout
view, so presumably they'd print out ok, but in normal view, which I use
for
working on the documents, the text starts on the left of the screen and
goes
about halfway across. I would prefer to have the text about in the middle
of
the screen when I'm working on it, but I don't know how to do it.
I'd appreciate some help.

Tools Options View and set the width of the style area. This will reserve
some space at the left side of the screen for labeling each parag's style
formatting, pushing your text toward the screen center.
--
Ted

"TedMi" wrote:

Tools Options View and set the width of the style area. This will reserve
some space at the left side of the screen for labeling each parag's style
formatting, pushing your text toward the screen center.
--
Ted

Thanks, Suzanne,
Shift plus clicking works perfectly.

"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote:

That is normal for Normal view (partly to accommodate the task pane). You
can move the text to the right by Shift+clicking the left arrow on the
horizontal scroll bar or by displaying the Document Map or Thumbnails (in
Word 2003). Or you could switch to Print Layout view and hide the white
space between pages.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

"laurence peddle" wrote in
message ...
My new pc has windows XP and Word 2002.Text documents look ok in print
layout
view, so presumably they'd print out ok, but in normal view, which I use
for
working on the documents, the text starts on the left of the screen and
goes
about halfway across. I would prefer to have the text about in the middle
of
the screen when I'm working on it, but I don't know how to do it.
I'd appreciate some help.